In the night garden tea and friends playset

In the Night Garden ... Tea & Friends Playset
Pre-school children love to make Mum a nice cup of tea ... which you oooh over and pretend to slurp loudly.  The problem with playing tea party is that after 18 cups of tea you kind of get a bit bored of slurrrping and want to get on with some jobs.  This is where Igglepiggle and Upsy Daisy come in :)

The In the Night Garden ... Tea & Friends Playset contains a full size soft bodied Igglepiggle and an Upsy Daisy.  The soft toys can take over from you and your little one can serve them tea for hours without hearing one complaint from them.

With the set you can help Upsy Daisy get dressed up for her special tea party with Igglepiggle. Then you can help her set up teatime on the cozy blanket. Set includes everything needed - Igglepiggles blanket, two cups, two saucers, two spoons and a teapot and serving tray.

Make sure you have your camera ready for taking sneaky snaps of your pre-schooler playing nicely for the family album... by the time they are 10 they will swear blind they never played tea parties and you will have hard evidence to prove them wrong (and embarrass them in front of their friends... oh is that just me? what a nasty parent I am!).

The pack also contains a DVD of In the Night Garden, so when its time for bed you can pop it on and have a nice cup of 'real' tea while they settle down for bedtime.

I like the way there is two full size soft toys in the pack .. however if your son/daughter is a big fan of In the Night Garden they will probably already have the Igglepiggle figure.  I would have preferred to just have Upsy Daisy in the box and maybe more tea set items eg.. 4 cups instead of 2, a sugar bowl or milk jug, etc...
Hasbro and Playskool could have packaged these separately so you could choose between the characters or even brought both sets?? although I would expect the price to be a little lower if this was the case.

All in all they are expertly made and excellent condition, no batteries are required and they make no noise and play no tunes ... so a nice quiet toy for imaginative play.

Age 2+
Priced around £29.99
Available from all good toy shops and high street retailers. 

Goodnight Friend Igglepiggle

In the Night Garden .... Goodnight Friend Igglepiggle

In the Night Garden is a tv show on Cbeebies, it is a very colourful magical picture-book place that exists between waking and sleeping in a child's imagination ... apparently.  To me its a nice pre-school show with lovable characters, uses keywords and rhymes to educate your child plus happy nursery rhyme style music which continues throughout the show.

Igglepiggle is the key character in the show, he travels by boat to the magical land where he meets and plays with his friends.  All children have their favourite character but Igglepiggle is most pre-schoolers favourite, well he is definitely popular in my mother-in-laws house when all my nieces are round.

Hasbro and Playschool have brought out a range of toys based on the In the Night Garden series. 
Goodnight Friend Igglepiggle is a soft toy with cuddly slippers and removable pyjamas, to be able to take off and on the clothing of a soft toy promotes manual dexterity skills in young children so this is a very good factor.  Igglepiggle also has his blanket with him which attaches to his hand with Velcro.

The lovable soft toy comes with a real working lantern which glows by pressing the button on the front.  The lantern is made from sturdy plastic and powered by 2 AAA batteries (included), these are hidden behind a screwed down flap so you will be able to change them if they ever run out.

Included in the box is a small 'Goodnight Friends' storybook for your little one to 'read' while cuddling Igglepiggle at bedtime.

I am impressed with the amount of fasteners that hold the toy into the box.  Igglepiggle is held in with 2 fasteners, the lantern is held in by plastic and the slippers with cardboard and some ties.  In comparison to other brands this is excellent! sometimes we have to have a production line to open up toys from the vast amount of packaging and wire ties ... Goodnight Friend Igglepiggle isn't like this at all, I estimate an adult can get in the box and have the toy ready in under 4 minutes, great for an impatient 2 year old on Christmas morning.

Age 2+
Priced at around £19.99
Available from all good toy shops and high street retailers.